Ok, so this isn’t a question it’s just a little something that I want to share. Yesterday I started Challenge 3 of the 6 minute a day course. Last night, I woke up at about 3am speaking Welsh (in my head, not out loud) and it was sentences with all of the new words and sentence structures I had been learning the day before. I woke up briefly a couple more times to find myself still talking away in my head in Welsh! Now I’m not prone to waking during the night (and I would rather not keep waking) but this was exciting to find that during my sleep I am continuing to practise. I am a dog trainer and behaviourist and in the dog world this would be called latent learning, however this can happen with humans as well. What happens is that during the rest period the brain has the chance to process what has just been taught and I believe this is a pretty good example of it!

What a great post - and I agree totally with the latent learning. I am more horse training based, than dog based, but I find they need to take some time out to think about what has happened, and process it. Horses often stand and lick/chew, which usually means they are sorting something out in their brain, as to what has just happened in terms of learning.

I have found myself dreaming about Iestyn and Cat commentating on what I am picking off the shelves in the supermarket, and then repeating what they say - I am highly hopeful it is my brain sorting out the challenges.

Yes - people often talk about ‘consolidation’ as something of an umbrella term for ‘not during active effort’ learning in humans - and it’s clear that plenty of fascinating things go on, and that stuff like this has real and abiding value, so it’s a wonderful sign…

That’s great! I love that you were still “talking away in your head in Welsh” when you woke up!

I had a dream last night in which there were a lot of people walking around outside my bedroom door singing Sebona Fi, and I was singing along with them. (Not out loud, thank goodness, because I can’t carry a tune in a bucket!) Now where did that come from? I have the weirdest dreams. I think I’d rather they were just normal lesson consolidation like yours!

I had a similar experience. Being retired I want to give the six month course some real focus and can occasionally apply myself for several hours a day to the task I tend to repeat challenges knowing that I have a dyslexic tendancy which plus a seventy year old brain, require over learning as a method of overcoming this problem… Last week knowing that I was to be away for five days I even ramped up my normal efforts. The consequence was that even though I was at a light level of sleep, my mind was awash with conversations in Welsh, all firing off in a surprisingly fluent manner, there seemed to be no problem holding my own. Most oddly I appeared to be chatting to my long departed Welsh speaking ancestors, I really enjoyed the experience, which ended as I woke to set off on my travels. All this was reminiscent of the visitation from an Angel that I once experienced when living in Nepal, but that’s another strange life experience not needing repeating here.

@allrhelakes, I love that you were speaking to your ancestors and an Angel! I have amazingly magical dreams too! When I’m walking my dogs I practise my Welsh out loud (I live in the wild hills of Mid-Wales so there is nobody to catch me talking away to myself and when driving I do the same. Yes, I think that enjoyable flooding of the brain with Welsh is causing it to be second nature. May this carry on!

I love that you are walking with your dogs in the wilds of Mid Wales. My Paternal ancestors farmed above Cellan. My father, a vicar, told me when I asked, that his belief stemmed from the spiritual feelings created when he was walking in the hills, I said to him but doesn’t everybody feel like that, he thought not but clearly you do - nice iawn.